Army tops American, 60-55

Steven Di Spigna

01/18/2007

Christl Arena is no longer proving to be a safe
haven for visiting Patriot League competition. With
good support from the crowd, Army remains undefeated
at home in the Patriot League with a tough,
hard-fought 60-55 victory over the American Eagles.
Outstanding free throw shooting down the stretch (14
of 16) enabled the Black Knights to hang on against a
valiant American squad.

Both teams started out rather slowly on offense in
the first half. While American's leading scorer, Andre Ingram, was held in check, Jersey City native Derrick Mason continually hurt the Black Knights with his
penetration and shooting. Army could never get it
going offensively in the first half, shooting about 25
percent from the field. The only apparent threat was
again Jarell Brown, who led the team with 8 points in
the first half. But, solid defense and decent
rebounding kept Army in the game, and although Mason
hit Travis Lay for an easy lay up at the end of the
first half, the Black Knights only trailed 23-17 at
halftime.

There was a lot of hot shooting by the local youth
league team that played at halftime, and the kids' hot
shooting seemed to rub off on the Cadets. Army reeled
off a 9-1 spurt to overtake the Eagles by 2 very early
in the second half. While the Eagles continually
challenged, Army never lost the lead again. Jarell
Brown really started showing off some of his
impressive offensive skills during this stretch,
hitting from both outside the arc as well as making
some nice moves to create his own shot. At the same
time, a lot of credit has to go to Army big men Chris Walker and Doug Williams, who held the two American
centers to only 1 point for the whole game. In
addition, in spite of a decided height advantage down
low, Army only lost the battle of the boards 35-32 for
the night, and their boxing out caused foul trouble
for American.

American was not going to go away easily. A nice
run by the Eagles brought them back to within 1, 42-41
with about 4 minutes left. At this point, Marcus
Nelson showed off some of his incredible athletic
talent. The freshman followed up a Matt Bell miss from
the corner with a thundering dunk off the offensive
rebound. This gave Army a 44-41 lead. Another nice tip
in on an offensive rebound by Jarell Brown continued
the hot streak, and Army never trailed again.

At this point, the clock became the enemy of the
Eagles. As such, they liberally fouled the Black
Knights in a vain effort to overtake Army. However,
extremely clutch free throw shooting, particularly
from captain Matt Bell (11 of 12 for the game) and
Cory Sinning (another double digit effort with 10)
helped seal the victory. In the middle of American's
run, American sharpshooter Arvydas Eitutavicius
attempted what looked to be a wide-open three pointer
to tie the Black Knights. However, before anyone could
really tell where it came from, Marcus Nelson once
again showed he excels on both ends of the floor with
a crowd-rousing rejection of a key American
possession.

Jarell Brown led Army with 19 points, followed by
veterans Bell and Sinning with 17 and 10 points,
respectively. American's leading scorer was
Eitutavicius with 17 himself (again, most from the
charity stripe). In addition to fantastic effort from
the aforementioned Walker-Williams combo, Corban Bates
fell under the radar, but also contributed nicely with
5 boards.

The 2006-2007 edition of the Black Knights is
definitely different from most recent past years.
Brown is proving to be a legitimate offensive threat
from anywhere on the floor and Matt Bell's superb
leadership helped to bring back Army to 500. Army will
need to continue its improvement as arch-rival Navy
invades Christl Arena this coming weekend. The place
should be filled to capacity as the Middies come to
town. While Navy is only 1-3 in the Patriot League,
they came to Christl Arena last year and won in a very
hostile environment, so the Black Knights will have to
be on their game to avenge the loss from last year.
Southpaw Greg Sprink leads Navy's scoring, and
continued great defense will be needed to lift the
Cadets to victory. Game time is at 12 noon on Sunday.